Establishing a T&A Contact Point

Time and Attendance (T&A) is the process of tracking work hours (e.g., tracking the number of hours employees work). A T&A application enables an employer to monitor employees’ work, leave, and premium pay hours. The primary objective of T&A applications is to ensure that employees' hours worked, hours in pay status, and hours absent are properly reported.

National Finance Center (NFC) Payroll/Personnel System (PPS) Supports Several T&A Applications which Allow:

• Employees or timekeepers to record time in pay status, paid leave, and nonpay status.
• Supervisors to certify the data recorded by the employee or timekeeper is accurate.

These applications incorporate timekeeping requirements specified by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) Policy and Procedures Manual and the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Parts 1-699 and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

In NFC PPS, A T&A Is Prepared and Submitted for Each Employee Who Is:

• In pay status any time during the pay period
• In nonpay status for less than 30 days
• In nonpay status (no personnel action processed) immediately preceding separation from Federal service
• Returned to duty from nonpay status on any day during the pay period
• On Office of Workers' Compensation Programs (OWCP), Transaction Code (TC) 67, Injury Leave

In addition to employee data, transaction codes, and accounting data, each T&A must contain a T&A contact point which identifies the location for inquiries concerning T&As and mailing of T&A related data. The contact point appears in the heading of reports furnished by NFC and must be included on all T&As transmitted to NFC. The contact point consists of Agency, State, city and unit codes defined as follows:

Agency/Bureau	Code in the NFC system identifying the cabinet-level Department or independent Agency of the Federal Government in which a person is employed.
State	Identifies the State in which a person is employed. A list of State codes is contained in the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) Worldwide Geographic Location Codes Handbook and Table Management System (TMGT) Table 16, Geographical Location Code with Names.
City	Identifies the city location code contained in the GSA Worldwide Geographical Location Codes Handbook. If a city code is not displayed in the GSA Handbook, contact the servicing personnel office to obtain the appropriate code. TMGT Table 016 also contains codes that determine the Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area used to determine locality pay. Any code containing all zeroes for the city code is not valid for T&A contact points.
Unit	Identifies the unit by an Agency-assigned number. The unit code is assigned by the Agency to identify each contact point location within a town.
Timekeeper	Identifies the individual timekeeper within a unit by an Agency-assigned number. Note: Although, this code is not required to establish a T&A contact point, it is required by all T&A applications supported by NFC; therefore, it must be included in all requests for new T&A contact points. Each human resources (HR) office must develop and maintain a listing of current timekeepers with their assigned timekeeper numbers.

TMGT

After the Agency determines a new contact point is needed, the appropriate TMGT point of contact should add the code to TMGT Table 003, T&A Contact Point Name and Address. This table contains names and addresses for each T&A contact point used on reports and T&A documents. Agencies may query TMGT Table 003 to view, update, generate reports, and produce mailing labels.

T&A Applications

Follow vendor guidance for determining how new T&A contact points are loaded into an Agency’s T&A application. Some applications require manual entry by the timekeeper or HR administrator and others receive an automated TMGT Table 003 update.

Assigning Employees

Users should follow Agency or vendor guidance for assigning employees to their timekeeper’s T&A contact point.